“What if I have questions about the material?” Sam asked. “I’m a very curious boy by nature, I’ll have you know. Probably to my social detriment.”

“If any related questions arise, you may interrupt me for an explanation, but otherwise, I expect complete silence. From the both of you.” Yvessa’s head snapped towards Felix, which to Sam felt was a little undeserved. After all, he had been the main instigator and perpetrator, preventing them from fulfilling Sarah’s objectives for the rest of their morning.

In the end, Sam didn’t ask any questions. Oh, he had plenty, even though the short introduction Yvessa managed to give him on elven history was, according to her, just the tip of the iceberg. But he figured that their time would be better spent in letting Yvessa continue her lecture unabated. Not that any of their time was really being utilized to its maximum potential. Yvessa obviously didn’t get anything from having to teach Sam the very basics of the culture in which she grew up in. And seeing as Felix already passed the first course in elven history, with flying colors apparently, he also had nothing to gain from listening to Yvessa’s very rudimentary lesson.

Meanwhile, Sam, who was the only person for which Yvessa’s ramblings were of any use, was also under no illusion that this could be considered anything but a waste of time. For while Yvessa was obviously knowledgeable about the subject, she didn’t have any experience disseminating it to other people and it showed. She jumped from topic to topic, staying too long on some and barely touching upon others. To be fair though, the whole ordeal had been dropped on her with no warning and she had no time to prepare any lesson plan, surely by their next time she would be better organized for the task.

Not that Sam was going to let there be a second time. It wasn’t out of any problem with Yvessa or her teaching acumen. But rather due to the fact that there was a fucking textbook, readily available and including all information deemed necessary by the academy’s staff regarding the subject. A textbook which would allow him to learn much faster than by simply listening to Yvessa’s lecture. And would prevent other people from wasting their own precious time in order to help him make up for his lack of it. Yvessa’s time could be better spent in a much more narrow scope, in which Sam would only turn to her once he finished going over the entire text in order to have any lingering questions answered.

Still, Yvessa’s lesson was interesting. Sam’s initial analysis to the main point of difference between the beginning of elven history and his own human, or rather Terran one, was in the manner in which civilizations first emerged. For the elves, all the first civilizations, all the total civilizations, in fact, rose in close proximity to one another. And they each chose to expand outwards instead of conquering one of its neighbors. Yvessa didn’t say that outright, but it was clear that many elves thought that this was a point of superiority in which they were better, or more moral, than the warmongering humans. Sam opted not to adopt his position regarding the matter just yet, although he still held in own apprehensions regarding the elves’ supposed peaceful development thanks to Felix’s frequent eye rolling and his own cynical and world-weary nature.

“And that’s the story of the Lesser Whale,” Yvessa hurriedly finished regaling Sam with one of the many early Elven legends as a response to Felix tapping his wrist at her. “Any questions?”

So many, Sam thought, but stood by his earlier conviction of not asking anything for now. However, before he could inform Yvessa of that, Felix raised his hand and said, “Eh, yeah, I have one Miss. I myself didn’t know about that whale. And I’m thinking that it’s maybe because it isn’t actually in the material required for the course…”

“Every young elven child knows about the Lesser Whale.” Yvessa crossed her hands with a frown.

“Sure, but that doesn’t mean that—”

“Look guys,” Sam said, “it’s close to twelve already and you well know that I have a date with a richer, older guy to go to. So how about you have this little tiff of yours while we’re on our way?” He stood up and beckoned the both of them to follow him out of his room.

“So,” Felix said to Yvessa as they were going down the stairs, “you decided to come after all?”

Yvessa rolled her eyes. “I already said that I’m coming. Like I would give up a chance to eavesdrop on three Taken.”

“Say what now?” Sam asked. “It’s me, Sarah and Maurice. You already know all of us, I think. At least all of us who aren’t French. Not that you’re not welcome or anything, but I don’t see what the big deal is about hearing us talk about our kidnapping.”

“You don’t get it. The Taken are legends, and not just for Terrans. All the other races—except maybe the dwarves; I’m not sure about them.” She put her hand to her chin before quickly shaking her head. “Never mind that. Every other race also has plenty of legends surrounding the Taken. We’re talking about some of the most famous figures in the entire history of the Web.”

“All dead now though, no?” Sam said, trying not the frown upwards as they stepped into the open air.

Felix laughed. “Well, if they’re dead, then surely they can’t be famous. Nah, for the other races, the Taken are some of the biggest names in history. People like Avellin the Great, or the Shallow Princess. And… these names don’t mean anything to you, of course.”

“No, no. That’s totally fine, don’t worry about it. Name dropping is an old and reliable method to make your readers feel as though the world your story takes place in is more than just the backdrop for the main characters to play around.”

“This isn’t a story, though,” Yvessa said.

“Well technically it is. What you mean to say is that this story is not fictional, which you know… let’s not talk about that right now.”

“Anyway…” Felix said. “Taken are pretty much the stuff of legends for most people out there. Especially for the other races who don’t have any anymore. Way bigger deal than the Little Whale.”

“Lesser Whale!” Yvessa said.

“Cool,” Sam said. “So does that mean I could my make living by making appearances in schools all throughout the Web like some washed out F tier celebrity?”

“What would you need to make a living for?” Yvessa asked. “You already get unlimited money from the government.”

“Hey! When you say it like that, you make me sound like some welfare parasite, suckling at the tit of the government, taking all the money that hard-working small-scale farmers are supposed to be getting in order to make up for the fact that their way of farming stopped being profitable in the fifties. And I’m just not willing to be objectified like that.

“No, but in all seriousness, I still don’t see what’s the big deal about the three of us Taken talking. Maurice just wanted to ask me some technical questions about my return. It’s not like we’re going to be swapping stories about how we each ran into Avellin or whatever his name was.”

“Her,” Yvessa said. “Avellin the Pretender was the daughter of the reigning Emperor of Pyllan during the empire’s integration. She was the fourth born and considered least talented of his children, but her strength after being returned quickly skyrocketed… Hence, the less common nickname.”

“Oh shit,” Sam said. “It’s kinda bad that I just assumed she was a guy, isn’t it? In my defense, when I think about ‘the Greats’ my head immediately goes to Alexander. Also, unless the Princess dude is a guy, I thought that Felix would give one guy and one girl as an example. Also, I’m sexist; I look down on women.”

“Bro, you too?” Felix said with a laugh and held up his hand for Sam to high five, which Sam promptly delivered.

“What are you going to do if people start to take your stupid jokes at face value?” Yvessa asked Sam.

“I’m confused… jokes? Anyway, it’s not like I’ve interacted with all that many people, and out of those few, I don’t think I’ve told all of them offensive jokes. And you’re obviously not going to tell other people about me. On account of having no friends, of course, not because you care about me or anything.”

“Well just you wait.” Felix made a fist. “The minute I make some new friends, I’m out of here. I’m going to throw you two under the bus in order to ingratiate myself with the cool guys’ clique. And then they’re going to know all of your secrets and we’re going to make fun of you behind your back.”

“Wow. Total heel move there buddy. You’re going to abandon us when where all working on our end of the year project by delivering it to the douchey antagonists; ending the first book on a low note? But then, in the third year and book, they’re going to do something bad to you, causing you to kill yourself when we don’t want to take you back because we don’t trust you? Or, less depressing, you realize that we were your real friends all along and you’re going to do a double turn and this time betray them in order to help us? I love it! Makes for a great story. Now we just need to decide whether to stereotypically portray you as a bashful virgin gay guy or a horny slutty gay guy. Which one would you like?”

“Bashful, please! Make me fall in love with the hottest guy on campus who’s also one of the bad guys. But then I realize that I actually want to be with the quiet nerd who sits next to me in biology class.”

“Granted but—”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Yvessa stepped in between the two of them. “And you.” She pointed at Felix. “Stop going along with every stupid joke Sam makes. You’re just encouraging him.”

“You’re just jealous because you don’t get any character development at all due to being the serious one.” Felix pointed back at her. He let out a small scream when Yvessa grabbed his finger and lightly twisted it. “Meanie,” he said out while caressing his wounded appendage.

“That totally wasn’t cool Felix,” Sam said. “You can’t tell people they’re not going to get any character arcs. Especially not women, who, historically, have suffered greatly from that due to being so much less interesting than men. See how I brought us back to what we were talking about, the possibility of me being sexist?” He raised his eyebrows at Yvessa.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Yeah, except that what we’ve really been talking about is the Taken.”

“Which Sam is one of,” Felix said. “So technically, as long as we’re talking about him, we’re staying on topic.”

“Which brings me back to my original point,” Sam said. “Which was that me, Sarah and Maurice, are all regular people, so there’s nothing interesting about listening in on our conversation. And again, you are obviously invited and should be coming, seeing as all of your friends are going to be there.”

“All of my Terran friends,” Yvessa said.

“I have yet to interact with another race and thus, lacking empirical evidence for the matter, I am unable to view them as fellow sophonts.”

“Well I,” Felix said, “have plenty of Terran friends. They just go to a different school. Wait, you don’t consider your family as friends?” he asked Yvessa.

“No. Do you?”

“Of course I do! I’m obviously closer to my siblings than my parents, but I always considered all of them as my friends. Sam back me up here.”

Sam shook his head. “I’m well with Yvessa on this one. Friends taught me that friends and family are two different things. Then again… hmm… Ross and Monica were also friends. But only after they were adults! And only because Chandler, who was Ross’ best friends from college, moved next door to Monica. Or are you saying that maybe they were already friends before that, and Monica was the one who told Chandler about the apartment next door?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Yvessa said, and Felix echoed her sentiments. Sam clicked his tongue at them in response. “But before you became incoherent, you were trying to, once again, dissuade us from coming along for lunch before you, once again, changed the topic.”

“Hey!” Sam was appalled. “I wasn’t trying to dissuade you or nothing. All I want is to temper your expectations so you won’t be disappointed when us Taken end up talking about who was the best chess player of all time. I’ve already told you twice. You’re more than welcome to come along.”

“And to be fair, Yvessa, you were the one who helped him change topics this time,” Felix said.

“Time before that as well. She just had to correct me when I made the honest mistake of thinking no woman could be nicknamed the Great.”

“What about Catherine the Great?” Yvessa asked him.

“That… that doesn’t count. I didn’t think you’d know about her when I spoke just five seconds ago.”

“I don’t. Just the name. And I wasn’t even that sure that I got that right.”

“Well you did. But your lack of any historical context makes me unable to offer you any of the two rebuttals I have for your counterargument. Nevertheless, I’m not one to waste any potential for comedy, so I’ll just present them with a sentence each and let you puzzle out the humor and logical argu—”

“No, thank you.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. Just as I am about coming to lunch.”

“For the last time, no one’s stopping you! Just don’t come crying to me when you’re bored out of your mind or when Maurice shushes you when he’s in the middle of interrogating me.”

“Why would we be bored if that’s what’s going to happen?” Felix asked. “I’d love to see Maurice, who, by the way, is pretty fucking famous and not just a ‘regular person,’ tear into you.”

“Why would you say that?” Sam asked. “Why would you say he’s famous and then just leave it at that without explanation? That’s just annoying.”

“Want me to explain what it then?”

“Not with that attitude, I don’t. Yvessa, you’ve already been explaining stuff to me today. How about stealing Felix’s thunder?”

She let out a sigh. “Fine… He’s a very good healer. Or doctor. Whatever you want to call it. Even more important, he’s a brilliant medical researcher.”

Felix raised an eyebrow. “More important?”

“Yes. More important! Most people won’t be affected one way or another by the existence of a new healing focused Ruler.” She turned to Sam. “Healers are pretty rare overall. So there aren’t many of them at the higher levels, with barely any Rulers.”

“Why? Don’t you guys grow up wanting to be doctors as well? That’s like one of the most sought after occupations.”

“I don’t know how it is in New Terra, but most kids I grew up with wanted to be powerful fighters, rather than powerful healers.” Felix nodded his head in assent. “And it doesn’t help that being a high level healer is a steeper hill to climb than being a high level fighter. You have to combine three different disciplines: levels, magical research, and medicine. Most people who learn healing magic do it as an ancillary focus, as a first aid that’s meant to supplement their fighting capabilities. Maurice is one of those rare people who solely focuses on healing magic. So Felix’s point is that Maurice is famous for the possibility of becoming one of those rare healer Rulers.

“Yvessa’s down selling it,” Felix said. “Maurice is famous because people think that he can become a Ruler for certain and that the only reason he hasn’t so far is in order that he could focus on research.”

“Why? If he becomes a Ruler they’ll force him to the front lines?” Sam asked.

Yvessa shrugged her shoulders. “Probably not, but who knows? Combat between Rulers is supposed to be way more fatal than regular combat. The general rule goes that if a Ruler is seriously wounded in a fight than they’re already on death’s door. Maybe a Ruler who’s focused on healing can make a difference in those cases. Achieve miracles that no one else can.”

“Must be something important about them that has to do with combat,” Felix said. “Otherwise there wouldn’t be a big deal about people like Maurice becoming Rulers. If not, then what reason could there be for Maurice to stay as a level 8?”

“If he really can make it to Ruler as easily as you claim he can,” Sam said. “Kind of makes him an opposite of Dan in that case. Hmm… maybe in more ways than one; if his own circumstances enable him to better appreciate my M.A.S.H joke. Still, I don’t get why he’s still stuck on level 8. If you bothered to make all to way to 8, why not make an extra effort and go all the way to 10?”

“You can’t just climb to levels 9 and 10 by gathering like it’s a normal level,” Felix said.

“Huh? Why not?”

“I don’t know. They don’t tell you until you reach level 8.”

“Are you serious with shit? Not telling you again? So now it’s not just becoming a Ruler, it’s also the levels prior to that? Why don’t you guys just look it up then? I mean, the internet exists.”

“It’s a military secret. They’re not just going to publish it online for the whole world to see.”

“Again with the military secret line? And what’s the big deal anyway? Are there a lot of level 8 criminals who’d just love to make it to level 10 in order to wreak havoc?”

“It’s nothing like that,” Yvessa said. “It’s just how the whole martial tradition surrounding magic has developed. Think about it, before the other races had their integration, they didn’t have the concept of levels and a lot fewer Rulers. There wasn’t an institutional and empirical approach to magic like we have today. Not to mention the aspect of guarding whatever knowledge you had in order to secure your base of power. So certain norms developed which dictate when you can tell a person about this or that information. Take, for example, elven children: it’s considered an extreme taboo to teach them anything about magic before their Awakening.”

“Cause they also run the risk of having their head blown up the first time they use magic?”

“Sure. The same risk as you: none.”

“To be fair,” Felix said, “there is a difference between the knowledge of what makes level 9 and 10 special to how to become a Ruler. The second one is actually confidential information. You’re not to know about it until you have to. The first one is more like the norms Yvessa mentioned. You’re not supposed to talk about it, but I’m sure that if you’ll needle Maurice or Dan long enough, they’ll spill the beans and tell you what the big deal is. But why would you? Wouldn’t you rather not worry about it until it actually matters?”

Sam narrowed his eyes at him. “I know we just met today, but I feel like you should know by that I’m not that kind of person.”

“Change starts with you. Be more like me.”

“You also don’t know?” Sam asked Yvessa.

She scratched her head. “It’s got something to do with your core, but I don’t know what exactly. It’s like Felix said, it doesn’t matter because the magic is too advanced for us to know about, or at the very least, make use of yet.”

“OK, I got it,” Sam said after a short moment of pondering.

“Got what?” Felix asked.

“What you need to do in order to become level 9 and 10.”

“No you didn’t.” Felix chuckled. “How the hell would you even know?”

“I guessed.”

“And you’re sure that whatever you guessed is the right answer?”

“Sure am.”

“You realize how idiotic that sounds, right? You don’t even know the first thing about magic.”

“Not ‘real’ magic, sure. But I’ve read a lot of books. Most of them had magic in it. So I consider myself somewhat of an expert on the subject. And I’ve used the knowledge I’ve gathered all throughout my life to deduce the reason why Maurice doesn’t want to become level 10.”

“Then please, enlighten us.”

“Are you sure? Wouldn’t want to ruin you guys’ naivety. You’ll be going against centuries of practices, of well-trodden tradition.”

Felix looked at Yvessa, who just shrugged in response. “We’re willing to risk it,” he said.

“OK, so this is what I got: So you know how there is the first state of your core where it’s solid or whatever and then you muddle it and it breaks or something. I already forgot what it’s called.”

“A fragmented core,” Yvessa provided the scholium.

“Yeah, that’s what it was. So my theory is that to get to level 8, you need to break your core down or whatever. But once there, you need to build it back up again. And the process solidifies your core and makes you unable to change it in the future for some reason. So Maurice, who’s still researching the best way to be a healer, doesn’t want to become a higher level because that will make him stuck in a path that he’s still not sure about. I could give an example of similar cases, but I doubt any of you are familiar with the literature required to get it. So… what do you think?”

“It’s idiotic.”

“Yeah,” Felix agreed. “Sorry man, but that just makes no sense. That’s not how muddling works in the slightest. Not to mention that the only thing that muddling has to do with level is that at higher levels, your core gets muddled faster. Oh, and that getting to level 1 and to a fragmented core is going to happen around the same time, give or take a month or two.

Sam scrunched his lips, narrowed his eyes, and let out a frustrated sound. “Well… I gave it a good shot. And I’m still one hundred percent going to ask Maurice about this. I mean, what sort of bullshit lore drop is this? If he doesn’t want me to know what it takes to become level 10, then he shouldn’t have acted out of the norm and stayed at level 8.”

“You know that making it to level 10 isn’t the norm though, right?” Yvessa asked.

“I don’t know anything. I believe I just demonstrated that most expertly.”

“Then you should know that in most deployed mobile combat units, i.e. the elites, the plurality of level allocation is either 7 or 8.”

“And you guys were never, not even once, intrigued enough to ask somebody why that is? I’m going to talk to Sarah about this. Tell her about the quality of friends she’s trying to set me up with. I mean, it’s like you guys grew up in a magical society and didn’t question the very basic facts that are the foundation of it and that were being ingrained in you from the moment of birth.”

“You never take anything for granted?” Felix asked.

“Only news headlines I see online. And maybe… everything I have ever experienced enough times to, mistakenly perhaps, deduce the existence of a casual reason for it to happen again in the future. But besides those two? Nothing.”

“Must be a cultural difference, then. I was raised never to question what I was told at risk of tutting. How about you, Yvessa? How brainwashed was your upbringing?”

“Zero,” she replied without looking at him. “One of the most important lesson we were taught, for a would be magical expert, was to always keep questioning what we were told. The field of magic is always changing and developing, not to mention how much personal preferences matter at the higher levels.”

“And yet you’ve never thought to question what is the reason for the blockage up the ladder to level 10?” Felix said before Sam could and shook his head in mock disappointment.

“I haven’t been told why that is, so there’s nothing to question.”

“So the elves think that curiosity is great and all, but only about the stuff you’ve been taught. Don’t think about the stuff we don’t tell you or why we don’t tell you about them. Seems like a curious example of curiosity.”

“Bad meta-curiosity is what it is,” Sam said.

“Look.” Yvessa furrowed her eyebrows. “It’s perfectly reasonable to be satisfied with the answer ‘you’ll learn in due time.’ More than reasonable, in fact. Would you want a child to demand the full explanation for what happens when you divide by zero when you only started teaching them about multiplication and division?”

“How dumb of a child are we talking about?” Felix asked.

“Dumber than you, if you can imagine it.”

“Children, children,” Sam cut them off. “There will be plenty of time for this sort of behavior after lunch. But now.” He gestured towards the hospital’s entrance and Sarah, who was waiting there for them. “You are to act with the utmost courtesy as befitting your stations, and, more importantly, mine. Don’t you embarrass me in front of my fellow Taken with your petty antics!” He raised a haughty fist.